Can we help Cultivate London train more young people in horticulture and become a successful social enterprise?

Cultivate London is an innovative urban farm based across multiple sites (formerly disused plots of land) in West London. Cultivate London has three main objectives:

To generate training opportunities and jobs for unemployed young people aged 16-25 in practical horticulture.

To convert derelict and vacant land across London into productive food growing space.

To increase the amount of local and organically grown produce consumed by Londoners.

Ealing-based charity Pathways Housing Trust set up Cultivate London with the aim of addressing youth unemployment in Hounslow and Ealing.

Cultivate London is a horticultural social enterprise, whereby all income generated by the sale of the organically grown herbs, vegetables and flowers that we grow is directed back towards running the enterprise. This then allows us to continue to provide work and training experiences for the young people with whom we work.

One way that we provide training and experience is through offering horticultural apprenticeships. Our apprentices work with us 30 hours a week, while attending Capel Manor College on a part-time basis to complete a Level 2 Diploma in Practical Horticulture.

We currently have two full-time apprentices, but would very much like to be able to offer more such placements, as we feel that apprenticeships are one of the most effective ways for young people to gain the skills and confidence required to enter the world of work.

In addition to these apprentices, we have 6 other young volunteers working with and three of them will attend Capel Manor College in January to complete a Level 1 Certificate in Practical Horticulture. Youth who work with Cultivate London often benefit in a variety of ways, including:

Increased employability through the acquisition of new skills and competencies (e.g. horticulture skills and qualifications, business skills, people skills, health and safety qualifications etc.)

Increased confidence and self esteem

Exposure to a variety of new experiences

New friendships

The Challenge

The ambition for Cultivate London is to take on and develop more young apprentices and horticulturists. And therefore make a real difference to young people’s lives.

The core challenge for Cultivate London therefore is to increase their funding as well as the sales of plant & crops they produce to be able to support the expansion of this apprentice program.

So, the core focus of the Good for Nothing challenge:

Create a communications strategy and suite of communications to reach out, excite and engage their key audiences (young people seeking work and experience, funders and local businesses buying their crops), specifically

Help Cultivate London tell their brilliant story more powerfully eg. Integrating young apprentices’ stories on the web

Create a communication strategy by key audience

Refresh and develop core messaging by audience on and offline

Refresh the organisation’s look & feel

Develop a social media strategy, tactics and guide and principles for using Facebook/Twitter etc. effectively

Create impactful fundraising pitch and funding ideas to grow funds

Cultivate London need help to raise funds so they can offer more placements and accreditations to young people in West London.

Create a short powerful presentation and tools to support this

Explore and identify other sources of funding ideas, concepts, and contacts

Prototype a basic sales management system to expand the business

For local businesses looking to buy their salads, plants and flowers, Cultivate London would like a smarter but simple sales management system online to make their sales process more efficient.

Note: they have all their stock in a database and are looking for a simple bulk ordering system.

How can I help?

You can make a start on this challenge simply by contributing ideas, or get stuck right in and share your work with the community here. Login or join the movement to get started!

Idea from Abbie Love

What a great initiative!

It would be good to understand what their current strategy and marketing activity is and what's worked well in the past. How / where / why do most of the target audience hear about Cultivate London in the first place? How do they promote / bring positive current apprentice or partner experiences to life?

There have been some interesting free strategy webinars on Sitecore recently that might help them get started on a digital approach:
http://bit.ly/1GIICXf

Idea from Rochelle Sampy

- In terms of improving your storytelling abilities, there is a great course from iversity called 'The Future of Storytelling'. It is free and so far, I am finding it great.

Coursera, another free online study network is also offering an Introduction to Marketing course which might be useful for branding or rebranding purposes.

If any one of you is under 30, why not approach the Princes Trust for funding and growing your business as a starting point? Kickstarter is also great for raising funds but you need to start with a strong brand and social media presence first.

Hope all this helps and good luck!

Idea from andrew gilhespy

I have a 2 metre by 2 metre pond with running water. The shallow part hosts my Water cress - well it did until it took over the whole pond, the surrounding area and the flower bed next to it. Its expensive to buy, is super easy to grow and is irrigated via my drain pipe. It over winters and I would estimate I'd get 60 laptop bags a week in summer. Each £1.25 a bag. Its easy.